Infinitum
by Misato Cuad Solte
Summary: As Shuichi stands alone in the empty auditorium, his love for Yuki consumes him and his memory of Ryuichi slowly fades away. There are two sides to every idol and one of them is dying.


**Notes**: Dark, angsty, confusing, _metaphorical_, opinionated. 

For anyone who gets confused and would like a clear explanation of what is going on, please don't hesitate to ask and I'll email you ^^;; 

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Infinitum 

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_Shuichi Shindou wanted to sing._

_More than anything, he wanted to sing._

_Shuichi Shindou loved Yuki Eiri_

_More than anything, he loved Yuki Eiri._

- 

Standing between two mirrors, your reflection goes on forever in each direction, goes on into infinity until it becomes so small you can barely see it, but you know that it is there, because where else can it go? 

- 

Shuichi Shindou stood between these two mirrors now, stood between the stage and the auditorium, not quite part of one or the other. For so many years he had stood in the latter, eyes wide with admiration and longing, his heart pounding to the beat of the music, his soul crying out to sing in time with the eternal Idol. 

The Idol who stood on a stage of stars, the Idol glowing with such force that wings might emerge any moment and lift him higher than ever into the infinite twilight sky where he would sing forever. The Idol he had worshipped with a longing so great it threatened to engulf his very being and claim him, swallow him in a one way dream from which he would never wake, the power of that person so much to take away his very existence. 

'Shuichi?' 

But the stage was his now. No longer did he strain his neck to gaze up at his God, no longer did his eyes sting from the tears of desire nor the force of the lights. Now he could sing his soul free, sing true his words and release his pain and torment and love. 

He sang for Yuki. 

'Shuichi? Are you all right?' 

He turned in surprise. 

'Sakuma! I didn't see you come in!' 

Ryuichi smiled a little 'That's okay. What are you doing here?' 

Shuichi turned back to the auditorium. 'I was thinking of a new lyric... If I come here, I can imagine Yuki watching me...it makes me so happy, I want to express it in my songs.' 

'You really love Yuki, don't you?' 

That voiced was laced with a sadness so great it seemed as though it would shatter at the slightest movement, that it would crack the sound and split into a thousand shards. Shuichi could hear none of it. 

'Yes, I love him more than anything.' He said simply, closing his eyes in ecstasy at the mere thought. 

His Yuki. The Yuki so many lusted after and idolised was his, and his alone. There was nothing that could stop him now, he had everything. He sang for Yuki and no one else. 

Shuichi stood between the two mirrors now. To his left was the stage, where he made himself an Idol. An Idol with such a reason so sing that he might grow wings at any moment and be lifted into the infinite sky where he would sing his love true forever. 

To his right was the auditorium, and his love. 

- 

_Ryuichi Sakuma was an Idol._

- 

'Why do you want to sing, Shuichi?' 

The young singer opened his eyes once more to stare at the empty auditorium. 'For Yuki, of course.' He said; the innocent cruelty of his words slicing through the air like invisible knives. 

Ryuichi Sakuma stood between the two mirrors now. Two old, dusty, spotted mirrors, flecked with rust and scratches and cracks. His reflections faded into a much shorter infinity, drowned in a grey and cloudy mist with no past and no future. 

'Shuichi...' 

'Mm?' 

'Do you remember me?' 

This Idol had let his wings die. Who had he sung for, why had he sung? Who now could he sing for when he wings had faded into dust on the stage - only to be reborn unto a new Idol like a phoenix in a rush of tears and desire? 

'What do you mean? You're Sakuma Ryui...' 

Ryuichi cupped his hands around the young Idol's face. He was so warm...when had this happened? Why were his own hands so cold? 

'What are you doing...?' 

'You don't remember me at all, do you Shuichi?' 

'What do you mean?' 

'Why won't you sing for me anymore, Shuichi? Why won't you sing for us?' 

'Sakuma...?' 

His lips were so warm, yet so bitterly reluctant. Ryuichi let his soul slip from his final sanity as he forced the kiss he had so longed for from the boy, even as hands pushed him away... 

Painful...it was painful but he needed it so. What was there left to sing for when the only thing that now mattered had been claimed by another, so cruelly taken away from the one that had loved him, from before he was even born. 

The new Idol who had so cruelly taken his wings, and had been corrupted so as to forget them, forget their history and their pain and the fact that they had _died_ for him. 

Reality didn't matter any more, not even as his back hit the stage and his head spun. 

'What are you doing?!' Shuichi cried out, a hand shooting over his mouth in defence. 

What did it matter now? Everything was over, the mirrors fading into nothing. He would die a miserable death in the shadows of this new Idol, this Idol who sang for no one, who had no soul nor words nor breath left in him to speak. Possessed by some foreign feeling of love that had poisoned his blood and violated him beyond return. He sang fake words to a fake audience who knew nothing nor cared, none of them. 

No new Idol could rise from these wings. These wings were poisoned, dying slowly. They were dead to him now. 

'Why won't you love me, Shuichi?' 

The singers eyes widened in something that to Ryuichi's eyes could only be disgust, learned from that foul being that he called his 'love'. 

'What are you talking about? I love Yuki!' 

- 

Standing between two mirrors, your reflection goes on forever in each direction, goes on into infinity until it becomes so small you can barely see it, but you know that it is there, because where else can it go? 

- 

Ryuichi Sakuma fell between the two mirrors, letting the shards fall upon him as they shattered, not caring how they tore at his skin and split it open, the pure blood of a true Idol running onto the grey floor of the empty auditorium, where he knelt alone and dying in the hopeless darkness of his fading desire. 

As the liquid red pooled around him there was only one reflection to be seen. The reflection of a lost Idol. 

An Idol who had forgotten himself, and had nothing left to love. 

- 


End file.
